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An Homage to the Kaneda Bike in Akira

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If there is a piece of Japanese animation that has transcended from the niche realm of anime into the larger consciousness of mainstream film, that piece surely has to be the movie Akira.

And while the dystopian themes of a future that is still recovering from the fallout of WWIII predominate the film, it is surprising to see how many fans have latched onto the motorcycle the main character, Kaneda, rides in the story.

I wasn’t even a motorcycle enthusiast when I first watched Akira, but Kaneda’s bike always struck me profoundly. Judging from the number of people who have tried to re-create the motorcycle in the flesh, I am not alone on this – even Kanye West has given the movie a nod.

Our friends at MotoFire luckily found this short tribute trailer from filmmakers Brad Kremer and Dean Fowler, who like us, also have a fascination with the Kaneda bike, and have re-made the iconic movie’s trailer to focus on this piece of machinery.

Fans of the original movie will find the imagery familiar, and for those who are getting their first taste of Akira, we hope the trailer intrigues you further.

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Lifestyle

The Epic Story of Barry Sheene is Coming to the Big Screen

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Barry Sheene is one of grand prix racing’s greatest riders, and perhaps one of its most intriguing characters. The two-time World Champion comes from a era when motorcycle racers were as unapologetic as the machines they rode, and Sheene exemplified both those those facts to the maximum.

Perhaps the original playboy of grand prix racing, Sheene eventually married Penthouse model Stephanie McLean – you’ve likely seen the set of iconic photos with her in Sheene’s unzipped leathers.

A heavy smoker, a big drinker, and a constant partier, Sheene represents a forgotten time in motorcycle racing where polished personalities weren’t the norm, and the personality of racers weren’t whitewashed by PR firms.

Why are we telling you all this? Because the epic story of Barry Sheene is finally coming to the silver screen, thanks to IO Films Australia and Deep Spring Pictures UK. It looks like it’s still early days for the crew, but the trailer is waiting for you after the jump.

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MotoGP

Hitting the Apex – Mark Neale’s New Movie About MotoGP

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MotoGP fans should recognize the name Mark Neale, as he has produced some of the sport’s most popular movies, such as Faster, The Doctor, The Tornado and The Kentucky Kid, the sequel Fastest, and now Hitting the Apex.

Continuing the timeline of Neale’s films, Hitting the Apex chronicles six riders: Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa, Casey Stoner, Marco Simoncelli, and Marc Marquez.

The movie picks-up just as Valentino Rossi is making his way from Yamaha to Ducati, carries us into the start of the 2015 season, and touches on the major events of those seasons. Neale as always provides a good balance between making MotoGP appealing to non-enthusiasts, while keeping plenty on the table for avid fans.

We’ll do a full review closer to the movie’s debut, but we think that fans and soon-to-be-fans will enjoy the two-hour film. We certainly did.

After the jump is the trailer for Hitting the Apex, and you will note it is narrated by Brad Pitt, who Neale tells us was instrumental behind-the-scenes in getting the movie released.

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Lifestyle

Get Excited for “On Any Sunday, The Next Chapter”

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I have had to zip my lips for far too long about this project, but A&R can finally tell you about On Any Sunday, The Next Chapter – the sequel to the famous documentary of a similar name.

A project by Dana Brown, the son of Bruce Brown, the man who filmed the original On Any Sunday, this next installment follows a variety of amateur and professional racers and enthusiasts, from a broad-spectrum of two-wheeled disciplines.

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Lifestyle

Trailer: Why We Ride

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Though the trailer to Why We Ride has been around for some time now, we have been getting emails about the two-wheeled documentary ever since its limited screening at the AIMExpo in Orlando, Florida. Encompassing every form of the motorcycling lifestyle, all accounts we have heard about the film say its a feel-good movie with a positive message about motorcycles. Think of it as a recruitment film for future motorcyclists.

Screenings of Why We Ride are limited though, with the movie set to debut in New York and Los Angeles, and with future screenings being held in the Southern California area. Hopefully the Why We Ride team can add other locales to the list. If they want to have a screening in San Francisco, Asphalt & Rubber is down to help with that. The trailer is after the jump. Enjoy!

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News

Trailer: Quick – Now We Get It…Sorta

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Back in May of last year, we brought you the trailer for the Korean movie Quick (allegedly set to be released under the name Fast in the United States). Other than featuring a BMW S1000RR, we had no idea what was going on in the original trailer, though we certainly were intrigued. Thankfully, an updated trailer has been released that actually unfurls the plot line a little bit more for us, and we can get an idea about what the Quick, Fast, but not Fastest, movie thing is about.

Already out in South Korea and Japan, Quick will debut in Singapore next week on February 2nd, however there is no date for the US market premiere at this time (sad trombone). Could a foreign film supplant such masterpieces as Biker Boyz and Torque as the definitive motorcycle action movie of our time? We don’t know, and only time will tell. Can someone send us a copy of this though? Thanks for the tip Rick!

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News

Come Watch Fastest in San Francisco with Asphalt & Rubber

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Asphalt & Rubber has teamed up with the San Francisco D-Store to bring you Mark Neale’s Fastest, the long-awaited sequel to the hit MotoGP documentary Faster that features Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Ben Spies, Colin Edwards, and Marco Simoncelli. The San Francisco Bay Area premiere of Fastest, our screening will be held at 7pm on Thursday, December 8th at the Embarcadero Center Cinema in downtown San Francisco.

Tickets will be available online or at the box office for $10.50, though we recommend purchasing your tickets ASAP, as we anticipate to sell out the movie well before the event date. All proceeds will go to A&R‘s favorite charity: Riders for Health. The official charity of MotoGP, Riders for Health is an international non-profit organization that provides motorcycles (and rider safety and maintenance) to healthcare workers in Africa. We hope to see you there.

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Reviews

Movie Review: TT3D: Closer to the Edge

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Before one starts a review on the new TT3D: Closer to the Edge movie, one should note the film’s underlying purpose. Funded by the Isle of Man government, the hour and a half long movie is designed to promote the Isle of Man as a tourist destination, to promote the controversial fortnight-long TT racing event in a favorable light, and to cultivate potentially new fans of the TT by providing a primer to this year’s racing action. Part documentary, part advertising, there is accordingly an agenda with this film.

Now with that caveat of information brought to light and understood, I can go on to say that TT3D: Closer to the Edge is an enjoyably great film that makes you range the gamut of emotions as it follows John McGuinness, Ian Hutchinson, and Guy Martin through the 2010 Isle of Man TT. Though the use of 3D filming is gimmicky at best, the short version of this review is that this is a movie that will end up on my DVD shelf as soon as it becomes available.

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News

Trailer: Quick

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We can’t tell if South Korean film Quick is going to be amazing, or horrible, or horribly amazing, but the trailer certainly has us intrigued. Launching under the title Fast in the United States (yes, we too have no clue why the title needed changing for the American market), Quick is about…well, we have no clue…but it looks like there’s a motorcycle in it, so that’s a start.

Our guess is that our protagonist is named Fast, and he does things really fast-like on his fast motorcycle, which is named Quick. Uggh..this article is going downhill rapidly (see what I did there). Just watch the trailer after the jump, and leave your best guesses as to the plot structure in the comments section.

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Racing

Trailer: Fastest – The Sequel to Faster

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Mark Neale has been a busy man lately, first putting out Charge, his movie on the first two electric races at the Isle of Man, and now with Fastest, his follow-up to the must-own MotoGP DVD Faster. Following Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, Fastest starts with the two riders’ time together as teammates in the Fiat-Yamaha MotoGP squad, and watches that team-dynamic turn into a heated rivalry.

Neale follows the duo as they dominate the field on their Yamaha YZR-M1 race bikes, and later as Rossi splits from Yamaha for Ducati Corse. Talking to the filmmaker the other day, it sounds like Neale is still putting the final touches on the film, but was ecstatic with how it was coming together. If it’s half as good as the trailer, we should be in for a real treat. Check it out after the jump.

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News

Trailer: Charge – The IoM TTXGP Movie Out in a Week

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Since we first heard about it, we’ve been less than patiently waiting for Mark Neale’s next opus Charge, a movie about the first zero-emissions motorcycle race, which was held during the 2009 Isle of Man TT. Now we get word from the movie’s Facebook page that Charge will be available in about a week’s time, and we’re downright giddy about it.

Check the DVD library of any die hard MotoGP fan, and you’ll find Neale’s Faster, an iconic movie about MotoGP’s shift from two-stroke to four-stroke motors — we imagine Charge will have this same point of reference appeal to electric motorcycle enthusiasts, and eventually motorcyclists as a whole.

We got an email from Neale the other day, saying that an advanced copy of Charge would be headed to our mailbox. With promises of death by ex-Navy SEAL (no, seriously) if it should land into the wrong hands, Asphalt & Rubber will be hosting the world premiere of Charge here in the San Francisco/Bay Area (location pending). Until then, check the video after the jump.

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